May 2016 – Mysteries and Manners

“Any but the greatest”

May 12, 2016

It’s been too long since I’ve written about Flannery, but as usual her voice is on my mind and ever-ready to set me straight.

There have been a lot of difficult changes going on around me recently #beingateacher #catholicschool, and today this quote by Flannery came to mind:

Naw, I don’t think life is a tragedy. Tragedy is something that can be explained by the professors. Life is the will of God and this cannot be explained by the professors; for which all thanksgiving. I think it is impossible to live and not to grieve but I am always suspicious of my own grief lest it be self-pity in sheeps [sic] clothing. And the worst thing is to grieve for the wrong reason, for the wrong loss. Altogether it is better to pray than to grieve; and it is better to be joyful than to grieve. But it takes more grace to be joyful than any but the greatest have. (Collected Works, via Flannery O’Connor in the Age of Terrorism: Essays on Violence and Grace)

That quote is worth rereading a few times.

I remember seven and a half (!) years ago while I was studying abroad in Rome, our Literature professor Dr. Roper framed our Lit Trad III course around the question “Is life ultimately a tragedy or a comedy?” We read Aeschylus and Sophocles and Aristophanes and Shakespeare and others that semester. Dr. Roper gave us that question again on the final exam.

These words by Flannery helped me, during that challenging semester and during the years afterward, to confront that question.

Dante (whom I always read with my kids this time of year) named his work the Commedia and gave us the traditional Christian response: life is ultimately comic (in the literary sense of the word) because Christ’s love redeems humanity.

But unless you yourself get a vision of hell, purgatory and heaven, it is much harder to see Dante’s vision of things except by faith. The ancient Greeks seemed convinced that life was ultimately tragic, and had a lot of good reasons for thinking so. Indeed their greatest works reflect the view that human beings are subject to fate or the whims of the gods and can only learn wisdom by accepting their humble (and tragic) state #Oedipus.

As an English teacher with a melancholic disposition, I tend to see my life, my work and my students very dramatically. This tendency can be good because it means I take everything seriously but it can also be bad because I take everything seriously.

I like that Flannery O’Connor, in the quote above, acknowledges but then pushes aside the question of whether or not life is ultimately tragic (note her friendly “Naw”, but not a firm “no”). If you read her stories, you might get the impression that she thinks life very tragic indeed. However, she pushes past the tragedy question and gets right to the heart of the matter, as she always does: “life is the will of God and this cannot be explained by the professors; for which all thanksgiving.”

Her tone is lighthearted here and characteristically critical of intellectuals, but it is not disingenuous nor dismissive. She is suspicious of her own grief lest it be “self-pity in sheeps [sic] clothing”, but as is usual in her letters you can hear her own experience of loss in the background as she wrestles with what faith demands: “The worst thing is to grieve for the wrong reason; for the wrong loss. Altogether it is better to pray than to grieve.”

Ultimately, she concludes, it is “better” also to be joyful than to dwell in grief, as perhaps Dante teaches us. Pope Francis, too, is always urging Christians to be joyful, going so far as to say that “without joy [a] person is not a true believer” (via Breitbart.com).

But I like that Flannery O’Connor openly acknowledges the challenge of joy: “It takes more grace to be joyful than any but the greatest have.” She suggests that joy itself is a divine gift–requiring “grace”– and that it is an experience we cannot muster on our own.

Only “the greatest”–that is, the saints– have this joy, not because they are not well-acquainted with grief, but because they are actually more well-acquainted with it than the rest of us. Their grief is joined to the grief of Christ on the cross, and so too is their joy. If you read her letters I think you’d agree that Flannery herself is included in their number.

Tell Them You Care

May 6, 2016

I think one of the hardest things about being a teacher is that moment you realize that you care WAY more than your students do.

The kid you have been pulling aside all year long, who doesn’t know how to study, and who you beg to come in for extra help? You care more than he does.

The girl who rarely comes to school and always comes to your class late, who misses so many lessons and therefore fails almost every assessment? You care more than she does.

The kid who always wants to put his head down, who always wants to go to the bathroom, who wants to do anything to avoid interacting with you or the other students? You care more than he does.

At least, you think you do.

That’s what it feels like when you are a teacher.

And yes, you get it. There are all sorts of reasons – valid reasons! – why a lot of kids don’t care about school.

But after a while you want to throw in the towel. Why should I care about Jake failing more than he does? Why should I spend all this time making retakes and practice assignments when half of those kids never show up for extra help anyway? Why should I even bother trying to make my lessons engaging? Why should I assign this essay or write this sample? Why should I put all this effort in?

I’ve been feeling this way a lot (as I often do at the end of the year). It’s a hard time for everybody.

Today I passed back yet another test which an alarming number of students failed. I showed them the study guide side by side with the test–the study guide I had assigned for homework before the test that many of them decided not to do. There were murmurs of surprise when they saw how similar the study guide was to the test, and how the homework was clearly aligned to the assessment and was clearly meant to help them.

And I felt like saying (loudly), “SEE? SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DOING THE HOMEWORK AND DOING BETTER ON THE TEST? DO YOU SEE IT NOW? WILL YOU ACTUALLY TRY DOING THE STUDY GUIDE NEXT TIME?”

But instead, I just said to them, “Some of you did a great job on this test, and you have been working hard all year, and I see you and I am so proud of you. Some of you really struggled on this test. Maybe it was because you are not giving yourself enough practice outside of class. Maybe it’s because you’re confused and you needed to ask for some help.

“But here’s what you really need to know: I gave you this study guide because I care about you. I offer retakes on every assessment because I care about you. I stay up late and plan lessons every day, even though I’d rather go to bed or do a million other things, because I care about you. I do everything I can to help you be successful because I care about you. I push you and challenge you because I care about you.

“It’s not too late to learn and grow. It’s not too late to walk out of the dark woods and ask Virgil to help you. It might feel like Virgil is leading you through hell, but you have to do the hard and scary stuff in order to make progress.” (We’re reading Dante’s Inferno right now, so they get the allusion.)

“I care about you and I want you to succeed. That’s my job. Let me know how I can help.”

And I saw on their faces that some of them were moved to hear that.

And I realized, I need to say that phrase – “I care about you” – a lot more often. Because sometimes they don’t hear that phrase as often as they should. And sometimes they can’t make the connection between what you do for them and how you really feel for them.

As with everything else in good teaching, you need to be clear. You need to say what you mean. Of course it seems obvious to us, as teachers, that we care. But it may not be obvious to your kids.

So, if you’re a teacher, insert “because I care about you” into your correction of a misbehavior.

Insert “because I care about you” into the consequence you give.

Insert “because I care about you” after you give some tough feedback on an assignment.

And see what happens.

They need to hear that phrase. All the time. And maybe if they do hear it all the time, over and over again, in big ways and small ways, verbally and silently, through actions and words, the message will hit home.